She is five
The present? A leapster l-max. Jury's out on whether it was a wise gift. She loves it but it seems so antisocial. (Part of me thinks I may as well have got her a trench coat and a rifle.) We'll see how it goes.
Phone pics
Long overdue
First there was the trip into town to see The Wiggles!
Our seats were up in the stratosphere but the kids didn't mind.
Followed by the stay at the hotel where we got good value for our money by not wasting any precious hotel time sleeping.
There was Christmas!
Silly hat pic by Toby.
More lovely christmas pics by Toby on his flickr.
Excitement at the black cockatoos alighting in our front yard to rip up our banksia. {Feel so privileged!}
Visitors! Lots!
[Ummm. No good photos of them all! Sorry!]
A garden party!
Cakes pic by Miss Helen. More on her Flickr.
And for me, plenty of this when everyone else is asleep.
Happy New Year!
Christmas portrait
Arky has been asking to wear a dress for several days now. So today Ella chose one of her old dresses for him to wear. As a consequence he's been pleased as punch all day, and they've been playing together beautifully. Might try the dress more often :)
Vegetables
We've been trialling a small vege patch this summer, ostensibly to see if I can keep the plants alive! If it works we'll put in much larger vege patch early next year.
So far the results have been mixed.
The strawberries were going really well until they caught some weird fungal disease and stopped producing fruit. The few strawberries that we did get were snapped up by the currawongs despite being protected by wire!
The first baby watermelon seedling snapped and died within three days of being planted. The second one has not grown a single centimetre in six weeks. It's not looking good for baby watermelon!
The eggplants might have gone well if they hadn't been drowned in torrential rain.
The parsley, basil, mint and rosemary have been going great guns. Cherry tomatoes also looking good.
The pumpkin seems to be doing well. In fact, it's taken matters into it's own hands (leaves?) and is slowly making it's way out of the vege patch, across the yard to a more desirable location! There are lots of flowers, we have high hopes!
The most successful of all the plants has been the snow peas. We harvested out first batch today and are planning to eat them for dinner tonight - with a great deal more of them that we bought from the greengrocer.
We're a long way off sustainability as you can tell!
Preschool graduation
This happy, confident girl gave a superb performance at the preschool end-of-year celebration yesterday. Today was her last day at preschool and she approached the occasion with similar poise and maturity.
Feeling so proud of her. Very emotional (me, not her) about finishing up at the preschool and starting 'big school' next year. Pleased that I don't have to drive to/from Blackheath 12 times a week (240km/week!) for a whole six months, which is when Arky starts.
Modelling
This one's for you Krissie! Arky carefully made a replica Jude from play dough today and asked me to take a photo. Can't you see the resemblance?
Preparing for big school
Something tells me it's going to be a long three months...
